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Crowns

Temporary Crowns in Antalya

A temporary crown is not a compromise you are being fobbed off with. It is a working part of the treatment, and a badly made one causes most of the problems people blame on the final crown.

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Acrylic Temporary Crown
01

What a temporary crown is for

A temporary crown is a acrylic cover made chairside and cemented with soft cement, worn for the days between your tooth being prepared and the permanent crown being fitted.

The short answer. It is not a cheap crown. It is a dressing that protects a prepared tooth, holds the gap and lets you eat while the laboratory makes the real one. Included in your crown treatment, not a separate purchase.

02

The four jobs a temporary crown does

  • Protects. A prepared tooth has had its enamel removed and the dentine underneath is sensitive and vulnerable.
  • Holds the space. Teeth drift within days. If the neighbours move, the finished crown will not seat.
  • Shapes the gum. The gum heals around the temporary, which is what gives the permanent crown a clean margin to meet.
  • Lets you function. You can eat and talk and, on a front tooth, not spend the week hiding your mouth.
An acrylic temporary crown held in fine tweezers above a clean worktop
03

Living with a temporary crown

It is bulkier than the real thing and it can feel rough against your tongue or lip. Cold registers more than usual. Both are normal and both end when the permanent crown goes on.

Avoid chewing sticky things on that side, and when you clean between the teeth, pull the floss out sideways rather than up - pulling it straight up is how most temporaries come off. If one does come loose, keep it, do not use household glue, and tell the clinic that day.

04

Temporary crowns when you are treated abroad

On a single trip you wear a temporary for a few days and fly home with the permanent crown fitted. That is the ordinary case and it needs no planning.

Where treatment spans two trips - implants, or complex work - you may wear a longer-term temporary at home for weeks or months. Ours are made to last that, and your plan says exactly how long you will be in one and what to do if it loosens while you are in the UK. Your patient manager is here, not in Antalya, which is the point of the arrangement.

A temporary crown in a specimen pot beside a tube of temporary cement and an applicator
Shade, shape and material

How your new smile is designed and made

Nothing is taken off a shelf. The colour, the shape of each tooth and the material are decided with you at the planning stage, then each piece is made for you in the laboratory inside the clinic building and tried in before it is fixed. This is what each of those decisions involves.

01

The shade

Tooth colour is chosen from a standard shade guide, the same one dentists and laboratories use worldwide. It runs from the bleached whites, BL1 to BL4, into the natural range, where B1 and A1 are the brightest shades a tooth is born with and A2 is the most common colour in adults. The tabs are held against your own teeth, your skin and the whites of your eyes in daylight, because a shade that looks right under a lamp can look wrong outside.

Bleached shades Natural shades
  1. BL1
  2. BL2
  3. BL3
  4. BL4
  5. B1
  6. A1
  7. B2
  8. D2
  9. A2
  10. C1
  11. C2
  12. D4
  13. A3
  14. D3
  15. B3
  16. A3.5
Where most patients land The most common natural shade
Try the shades on your own smile
A dental shade guide fanned open, sixteen porcelain tabs running from bright white to warm ivory
02

Choosing yours

  • Two or three steps brighter than your own That reads as fresh. Much more than that, and the teeth start to look brighter than the face around them.
  • Bleached shades suit a full set A single veneer or crown is matched to the teeth beside it, not to the chart, so it disappears among them.
  • Whiten first if you are keeping natural teeth Porcelain does not change colour later. If some of your own teeth stay, they are whitened first and the shade is chosen against the result.
A gloved hand holding a single shade tab in front of a plaster model of the teeth to check the colour match
03

The shape

Front teeth come in four broad families, and a smile design starts by choosing the one that suits your face. Length, width and how the edges sit against your lip when you speak are set at the same time.

  • Square Straight edges and flat corners. Reads as strong and assured, and suits a broad or angular face.
  • Ovoid Softly rounded corners on a longer body. The most natural choice for most faces, and the most often chosen.
  • Tapered Narrower at the gum, widening towards the edge. Delicate and youthful, and suits a slim face.
  • Rounded Full curves at every corner. Gentle and friendly, often chosen to soften a strong jaw.
Try the shapes on your own smile
Four porcelain front teeth in a row, one square, one ovoid, one tapered and one rounded
04

The trial smile

Before any tooth is prepared, the design is built in wax on a model of your teeth and then placed over your own teeth as a temporary mock-up. You see the shade, the shape and the length in your own mouth and in your own photographs. Anything you want changed is changed then, before the porcelain is made, not after.

A trial smile built in wax on a plaster model, a carving tool beside it on the bench
05

The material

There is no best material, only the right one for each tooth. Front teeth are usually about how the light passes through; back teeth are about the bite. Your plan names the material for every tooth before you pay anything.

Material How it looks How strong Best for
E-max (lithium disilicate) The most lifelike. Light passes through it the way it passes through enamel. Strong enough for any front tooth and for single crowns. Veneers and front crowns, where looks matter most.
Zirconia Bright and slightly more opaque, which is useful over a dark tooth. The strongest ceramic there is. It does not chip. Back teeth, bridges, full arches and heavy biters.
Layered zirconia A zirconia core with porcelain layered on by hand for a natural surface. The strength of zirconia underneath, the finish of porcelain on top. Full smile makeovers that need both strength and looks.
Metal-ceramic Porcelain over a metal cap. A dark line can show at the gum in time. Proven over decades. Back teeth where cost matters more than looks.
Three crowns side by side: translucent glass-ceramic, bright zirconia and metal-ceramic with its dark collar
Six steps in the laboratory upstairs

How each piece is made

Every veneer and crown is made for one tooth in one mouth, in a laboratory inside the clinic building, so a try-in and an adjustment happen the same day rather than after a courier. Machines do the measuring and the cutting; people do the colour, the surface and the final check against your own teeth.

  1. An intraoral scanner wand in its cradle beside a screen showing a digital model of the teeth
    01 The scan A digital scanner records your prepared teeth in a few minutes. No trays of impression putty.
  2. A technician's desk with a monitor showing a digital design of an upper arch, a stylus tablet in front of it
    02 The design A technician designs each tooth on screen against your photographs and the trial smile you approved.
  3. A milling burr carving a crown out of a zirconia disc, fine white dust around it
    03 Milling The design is cut from a solid disc of zirconia, or pressed from an E-max ingot, to a tenth of a millimetre.
  4. A gloved hand painting porcelain onto a crown with a fine brush, a palette of powders beside it
    04 Layering Porcelain is painted on by hand in thin layers to build the depth and translucency of a real tooth.
  5. A porcelain furnace with its lid open and six crowns glowing on the firing tray
    05 Firing and glazing Each piece is fired, then stained and glazed by hand and checked against your shade tab in daylight.
  6. Eight finished veneers laid in an arc on a black velvet tray beside tweezers and a hand mirror
    06 The try-in Every piece is tried in and adjusted before it is bonded. You approve it in the mirror first.
Answered plainly

Temporary crowns: your questions answered

Still not sure? A clinician talks it through before you commit to anything.

Ask a clinician
Do I pay separately for a temporary crown?

No. It is part of the crown treatment. A full-arch PMMA temporary denture for implant cases is a separate line at £500 an arch, and it appears on your plan if it applies.

How long can I wear one?

Days for a normal crown case. Weeks or months for a longer-term temporary made for the job - the plan will say which you have.

What if it falls off at home?

Keep it, do not glue it, and message your patient manager the same day. It usually recements easily; the risk of leaving it is the neighbouring teeth drifting.

Can I eat normally?

Mostly. Avoid sticky and very hard things on that side and chew on the other where you can.

Will it look obvious?

Acceptable rather than beautiful. It is shade-matched approximately, and its shape is functional - the finished crown is the one that is made to match.

Why does it feel sensitive?

Because the enamel is gone and the temporary cement is deliberately soft so it can be removed cleanly. It settles once the permanent crown is bonded.

Tools Design your smile Shade, shape and length. On your own photograph. Try it
The gentlest way to start

Tell us what you need. We will price it in writing.

One message and a coordinator replies with an indicative plan and price. Send a photograph of your smile if you have one - it makes the answer better, and it is never a call unless you ask for one.

Would rather talk it through? Book a free consultation, see every price first, or design your smile on your own photograph.